OCBC 'dresses up' ATMs, turns functional to eye-catching

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Grace Ong

28 February 2020

OCBC Bank has launched a new campaign called "The Great OCBC ATM Dress-Up", which features its ATMs being donned with various decorations. According to OCBC, ATMs are often seen as functional machines for customers to withdraw cash and banks’ messaging on them are a blind spot to customers. As such, it gave some of its ATMs in high-traffic and prominent areas a makeover to highlight some of its products and offers.

Some of the decorations were beach-themed, movie-themed, and even featured local delicacy "Teochew png kueh" (steamed glutinous rice cake). Its travel-themed ATM design located at Tanah Merah and HarbourFront ferry terminals, was aimed at tying back to the bank’s newly launched OCBC 90°N Card. While the popcorn-themed ATMs, located at Cineleisure Orchard and Shaw Centre, targeted movie-goers. And the Nonya Kueh ATM design was applied at Telok Ayer Food Centre and the Esplanade, which are popular and heritage-inspired locations.

The campaign is done in collaboration with creative agency OuterEdit. Additionally, all OCBC ATMs have a QR code that allows customers to scan with their OCBC Pay Anyone app to withdraw cash.

Meanwhile, in a statement to Marketing, Yvonne Low, chief marketing officer, Consumer Financial Services Singapore, OCBC Bank said as an on-going challenge to make the bank’s own brand assets work harder, the team came up with the idea of giving our ATMs a “make-over”. This then led to contextualising the ATM dress-up theme relating to the location’s demographic and populace, but at the same time using it to market OCBC’s relevant bank products and services.

“ATMs are usually thought of as a functional tool for customers to withdraw and deposit cash. But what’s interesting is that some of our fleet of few hundred plus ATMs islandwide are situated at some prominent locations that presents itself as a good platform for contextual marketing messages,” she added.

Last September, OCBC launched an outdoor activation for its "Unstoppable" campaign, entertaining Singaporeans at Raffles Place with a live skit. Engaging a guerrilla group of theatre actors for the skit, the activation featured everyday scenarios through a street performance, and aims to educate passers-by of its mobile banking app features.

Done in collaboration with Ogilvy Singapore, a series of four street plays were conceptualised. One of the short scenarios feature a man lifting weights at a gym who is then approached by a friend questioning him about his budgets for the month. Without stopping his exercise regime, the lead character speaks to his mobile banking app to figure out if he has enough budget for the month to sign up with the gym.The spot ends with the actors promoting OCBC's latest voice assistant feature as well as the easy mobile banking through a phrase, "Hands all tied up? No problem, you can use voice assistant to access your banking needs."